


Commodification

by velvetjinx



Series: Candids 'verse [6]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetjinx/pseuds/velvetjinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 6: Africa</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commodification

**Author's Note:**

> I had to guess at some spelling of names in this one, so apologies.

Simon knew what life changing moments felt like. The day his father had died – the day Westlife, a band that he had signed, got to number one – had been the very definition of an epoch in his life. 

But going to Africa with Ryan for Idol Gives Back… That had been totally different. It hadn’t just changed a part of his life. It had changed _everything_.

When the American Idol producers had first asked him to go, he had given them an outright ‘no’. Not because he didn’t care; quite the contrary, in fact. He’d said no because of how much he knew he would care while he was there. He knew that there was no way he would be able to cope with it alone.

“Just think about it?” Simon Fuller had asked, and Simon had grudgingly agreed, although he was determined that he wouldn’t be swayed. 

The more he thought about it, however, the more he realised that he actually _wanted_ to go. Yet the problem remained that he simply wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with something like that alone.

But…if he didn’t have to cope with it _alone_ ….

Simon picked up the phone and dialled the producers. “I’ll do it,” he said, “on one condition.”

The voice on the other end was loaded with suspicion. “What condition?”

“Ryan has to come with me.”

The producer was silent, then, “We’ll ask, but we can’t guarantee anything.”

“Fine,” Simon said shortly, and hung up the call. 

Five minutes later the phone buzzed again, and Simon grinned when he saw the caller ID.

“Yes?”

“Did you tell the producers that you’d only go to Africa for Idol Gives Back if I went with you?” Ryan sounded breathless, and Simon wondered what he’d been doing when the producers had called him.

“I did, yes.”

“May I ask _why_?”

Simon sighed heavily. “Look, Ryan, you _know_ me. I can’t cope with intensely emotional situations, and I especially can’t do it alone. I stand a better chance of coming out of it with some semblance of self if you’re there with me.”

He could practically hear Ryan’s brain working overtime, reading too much – or maybe just enough – into what it was Simon meant. Finally, Ryan answered.

“Fine. If that’s what it takes to get you there, then I'll do it.”

The relief that coursed through Simon in that moment was unexpected, but not wholly surprising. He really did want to do this – Simon was a great believer in new life experiences and expanding one’s horizons, and for all he had a reputation for being a total bastard, he was extremely charitably mined, especially when it came to children or animals. And to have Ryan there with him….

Over the past year, since Ryan had taken the step to begin to fix what had broken between them, their relationship had been…well. It had been fantastic, but it had somehow fundamentally changed. Neither of them spoke about it, but Simon could feel it in every look, in ever word, in every touch. They still weren’t exclusive; there were no out of character sappy declarations. But there seemed to be an undercurrent of understanding which ran through everything they did together, which Simon was – surprisingly okay with.

Having Ryan with him on this trip was going to be a real experience for both of them, Simon knew. He just wasn’t entirely sure what kind.

“This will be unlike everything you’re used to,” one of their guides told them as they loaded their things into the vehicle, and Simon only barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes, because that was the point, wasn’t it?

But the further they drove, the more Simon realised that this was not an idle comment. Because Simon had suddenly realised that he could never have imagined anything like what he was seeing as it flashed by. Toddlers scavenging the streets. A young woman who was so thin Simon didn’t know how she was still standing. Children digging through piles of garbage.

When they’d reached Kabira – one of the largest slums in Africa, so they’d been told; an unimaginably huge population living in an unimaginably tiny area – Simon was totally unprepared for the feelings which assailed him. He clutched briefly at Ryan’s arm, overwhelmed, and when their eyes met it was with no small amount of relief that Simon realised Ryan felt the same.

They quickly dropped their bags off at the hotel before going straight out to visit a woman who looked after AIDS orphans. Her name was Emily, and she lived with thirteen children in a one room hut. They learned that three of the children were Emily’s own; out of the ten others she looked after, three were HIV positive themselves. It was unthinkable, but it was happening right in front of him.

The kids were so sweet – shaking hands with him and Ryan, smiling shyly at the cameras.

“Where does everyone sleep?” he asked Emily.

“Shall I show you?” she asked, glancing at the camera.

Ryan nodded. “Yes please, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Emily stood and, after putting the baby down on the bed, picked up a blanket and unrolled it on the floor.

“So every night you make the bed like this, huh? For thirteen kids.” The wonder in Ryan’s voice was obvious, and Simon couldn’t help but shake his head in amazement. 

Emily said something to the children – not in English, so Simon couldn’t catch it, although he realised the gist as the children got up from their seats and started lying down on the blanket and on the bed to demonstrate how they slept. Some of the younger ones smiled as they did so, seeming to think it was a good game. Simon felt a little like he wanted to cry.

They thanked Emily for her time, and she smiled gently at them. Simon was overcome with the urge to hug her, and although she seemed a little surprised, she just laughed at him. He could see Ryan watching out the corner of his eye as they left, and wondered what he was thinking.

“Where to now?” Ryan asked, once they were back out in the blinding sunshine.

“We’re going to visit a girl called Emma,” said the sound man, whose name Simon couldn’t for the life of him call to mind. He blamed the heat. “We went to see her couple of days ago, and though she’d been ill it looks like she might get better.”

Simon ‘hmm’d in response, and they drove the rest of the way in relative silence. 

When they got to Emma’s house, however, they were told she had taken a turn for the worse. Filled with trepidation, Simon followed Ryan into the room.

It was stiflingly hot in there, and the syrupy-humid air smelled so heavily of sickness and death that Simon could almost taste it. Emma lay prone on the bed, almost totally unmoving, even when Ryan called her name. They sat in chairs next to her, and Simon tried to talk to her, but she was too ill to speak. They tried for a few more minutes to talk to Emma and her family, and then a few more minutes just talking to her family.

He looked up at Emma’s mother, whose face held a mixture of hopelessness, grief, and strength. Simon didn’t know how she could do it. “This is not the right place for someone as ill as your daughter, to be living in a room like this,” he said, but the woman just shook her head.

They sat in silence for a few more moments, but then Simon simply could not take it any more, with the taste of death tickling at the back of his throat. 

“Oh, this is just intolerable!” The words exploded from him with no forethought as he stood, desperate to get out of there for a respite that would never be granted to the dying girl on the bed.

“This is not…a good condition,” Emily’s mother added, and the knowledge that there was no other choice available to these people made Simon’s heart clench.

“These are _terrible_ conditions,” he said as he walked out, intent only on escaping the room.

He sat on a chair outside the door, trying to explain it for the people who would eventually watch it from the comfort of their living rooms. When Ryan emerged from the room, Simon could see an equal measure of sorrow and helplessness as he could feel on his own face.

They went outside together, but it suddenly because too much for Simon. He marched a few paces down the street and sat down next to a house, fingers clutching uselessly at his jeans as he fought the tears that threatened. Through lowered eyelids and blurred vision he could see the beige khakis of one of the crew members, and grunted when asked if he was alright. The cameras hadn’t followed, at least – he later found out that Ryan, knowing how much he would have having a camera in his face at such a raw moment, had run interference and told them not to follow. 

By the time Simon had pulled himself together, it was time to move on.

“Dare I ask what’s next?” Simon asked dully as they climbed back into the jeep.

“We’re going to visit Ruth,” Ryan answered quietly. “She’s 28, she’s dying of AIDS, and she has two young kids.”

“Oh, god.” The first day wasn’t even half over and already Simon was tempted to just give up – they were taking what was a very real collection of horrific tragedies and commodifying it for an entertainment show, and suddenly Simon didn’t feel as good about taking this trip as he had when he had agreed to it. But as he looked around outside the jeep, he knew he had to hope that these stories would touch people, would help them understand a small amount of what these people were going through. That they would perhaps inspire people to make a difference. 

They soon arrived at their destination, but this time, Simon wasn’t up for messing around. They spoke very briefly to Ruth’s family about her condition, and it wasn’t good. Simon couldn’t bear it any longer. Not when they perhaps had a chance to help. 

“Ruth is very ill now, yeah?” he asked, and her family nodded, assenting. “And we have to get her to a hospital now.”

When they answer came as ‘yes’, Simon nodded.

“Okay, then we should get out the way,” he said, standing, aware of Ryan looking at him in surprise.

Simon walked behind as Ruth was carried to a truck, where Ryan was already helping to prepare the vehicle for her. As Ruth was being placed into the back seat, Simon made to go around the other side to help. As he passed Ryan, his lover’s hand came up to pat his chest as if to stop him, but then he felt Ryan’s other hand on his back and realised that it was the closest approximation of a hug that they could give each other in that moment. He revelled in the contact, but it was over in a moment and he rushed to the other door of the truck.

As the truck rolled away, Simon watched it go as Ryan turned and walked away. Simon wanted nothing more than to go with him, to wrap him in a hug so they could share some mutual comfort. But Simon knew that the cameras would follow them, and that Ryan would probably prefer not to have an audience in that moment. Instead, Simon stayed to return the favour from their previous visit and keep the cameras with him.

All Simon wanted to do was shower and sleep without dreaming, but they weren’t done yet.

Their guide took them to a local school to meet a young boy. He was an orphan, their guide explained – left alone to take care of himself and his sister, who was five years his junior. Simon was appalled, but the guide explained that there was no one else to look after them. Not only that, but he told them that this was not unusual – as if the commonality of the occurrence somehow made it less of an atrocity.

Simon forced himself to act as normal as possible around the boy, whose name was Graulan. Graulan was a normal, twelve year old kid – he liked to sing in his school choir, preferred maths to almost any other subject, was a little shy when he spoke. But he also had that air about him – the air that Simon had noticed before in children who had been forced to grow up too quickly.

They later went back with Graulan and his sister, Violet, to their house, but when they got there, Simon realised that all they had was one room and a small courtyard, which they shared with two other houses. They had been asked to talk to the kids about their plight for the cameras, and so they did just that – first Ryan asked them about their parents, then Simon, still both rattled with disbelief and utterly appalled at the level of poverty that he’d encountered that day, asked about the house. 

Then Graulan started to cry, and before Simon could do anything, Ryan started to hug the young boy, crying himself and telling him that it was alright to cry, that it would be alright. A reassuring, empty lie, Simon thought grimly.

When they finally left to go back to the hotel, they sat in the back of the jeep in silence, the enormity of what they’d experienced that day too overwhelming to articulate, even in the context of a shared experience. Simon wasn’t sure how they would edit it to make people understand – no doubt Ryan would need to do an emotional, but restrained, voiceover. Even so….

Even so, Simon wasn’t sure how they’d be able to package such abject suffering so it would be palatable for the general American public. Shocking enough to engender a visceral reaction of sympathy, but not so much that it made people feel too guilty or uncomfortable, which would quickly lead to resentment, which would of course be counterproductive. 

God, it had been such a long day, and they still had another to go. They’d been told that they’d be splitting up for that day to cover more ground in a shorter time, and Simon had grudgingly agreed. He felt awful, but he couldn’t help but want to go home as soon as he could. LA or London, he didn’t care. Anywhere familiar.

Simon slept very little that night, a combination of the heat and the stark horrors of the day making rest almost impossible. 

The next day was less taxing – for Simon, at least. They first visited an orphanage together, meeting some utterly adorable children – Simon could help but think snarkily that if he had been Madonna he would have been going back to the US with at least two of them – then split up so they could see other things. Simon went with a guide to visit some of the other children in the slums, while Ryan went to a feeding centre and a malaria hospital. Simon felt a little guilty that Ryan was going to the malaria hospital alone, but after his near breakdown the previous day Simon knew that there was no way he would be able to cope with much more.

When Ryan returned, he had a look of such intense sadness in his eyes that all Simon wanted to do was wrap his arms around him. But there were crew members everywhere and no chances of privacy, and again Simon longed for home.

Finally, the next day, they bid farewell to Africa. They said a heartfelt goodbye and thanks to their guides, and boarded the plane. Although they were sitting next to each other there was a distance between them, as though the enormity of what they had experienced and their shared sorrow had created a barrier. But as the plane took off, Ryan’s hand found his under the blanket, and Simon felt like he could breathe again. He knew that everything wasn’t fixed, and perhaps never would be again, but there in that moment he and Ryan were united in an experience that was profoundly greater than themselves, and Simon had never felt closer to another person in his life. He moved his hand so that his fingers were interlinked with Ryan’s and squeezed gently.

They would weather this one out together.


End file.
